While initializing device IOS: Windows protection error. You must restart your computer

Error: "...Windows Protection Error..." in Windows 95

Situation:
After you made configuration changes to your system, Windows 95 displays one of the following errors during system startup:

"While initializing device IOS: Windows protection error. You must restart your computer."
"While initializing IOS: Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer. "
"Windows protection error. You must restart your computer."
"Windows initializing device IOS: Windows protection error. IOS failed to Initialize, Please restart "
"Windows initializing device IOS: Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer."
"Windows protection error."

Common configuration changes include:
- Installing a program. Installing any program can result in these errors, including installing Norton Utilities.
- Changing the size or location of the swap file. If you checked the "Configure swap file for optimal performance" option in Optimization Wizard, it makes these changes when they are appropriate.
- Editing the registry. If you checked the "Optimize my registry" option in Optimization Wizard, it edited your registry to remove empty space.

Your system has 32 MB of RAM or more, many device drivers loading into memory, and it does not have Internet Explorer 4.0 installed.

Solution:
This is a known issue with the Windows 95 operating system and may happen after installing or uninstalling any product. Microsoft has fixed this problem in Windows 98.

One of the following solutions may resolve the problem until you are able to obtain a copy of Microsoft's repair file, IOSUPD.EXE.


For more information, see Article No. Q157924 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base at: http://support.microsoft.com/support/

Microsoft's IOSUPD.EXE file can be found on the Microsoft Web site and at a number of other locations. Since the installation instructions appear to assume that the system is successfully booted into Windows 95, you may need to reinstall Windows 95 before you are able to apply this fix. As with other hotfixes, it may not be advisable to apply the hotfix unless your system reports this error.

CAUTION:
Run this file only on Windows 95 systems. The file can corrupt your installation of Windows 98.

This file can be found at the following location:

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/iosupd.exe
This is a Microsoft ftp site for file downloads. Download the file IOSUPD.EXE. Running this file will extract the files IOSFIX.EXE and IOSFIX.TXT. Running IOSFIX.EXE will extract the files README.TXT and RMM2UPD.EXE.

- Taken from Symmantec's Website

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